Category: Articles

Google alternatives for NUJ Journalist magazine

Journalist cover June-July 2016I have written the cover article for the new issue of the NUJ’s Journalist magazine on organisations offering Google alternatives, covering the likes of DuckDuckGo, Firefox, Runbox, WordPress, OpenStreetMap, Mapbox and Ordnance Survey, as well as what I reckon Google does well. You can read it magazine’s digital version, on pages 18 and 19.

This was inspired by a meeting for journalists at Google’s non-permanent for tax purposes establishment at Central St Giles, detailed here on the NUJ’s London Freelance website.

Links for the Journalist piece are below.
Continue reading “Google alternatives for NUJ Journalist magazine”

IT, immigration and education for The Register

The Register has just published my piece on why IT departments in Britain employ so many staff from outside Britain (and likewise in the US).

There’s a lively debate already underway in the comments, but rather than immigration, interviewees blame a combination of schools’ lack of interest in coding – now being changed by schemes like Raspberry Pi’s Code Club – and a sense that software engineering isn’t a top-draw job, unlike respectable professions such as, er, investment banking. Continue reading “IT, immigration and education for The Register”

Into the woods: how walks are improving mental health

A trailblazing approach to mental health by Forestry Commission Scotland and local health boards is seeing service users go on activity-filled woodland walks

For Guardian Healthcare Professionals Network I have covered Branching Out, a programme run by Forestry Commission Scotland that uses the theraputic powers of woodland to help groups of mental health patients. Since it was launched in Glasgow in 2007, it has spread to most of the NHS boards in Scotland. Continue reading “Into the woods: how walks are improving mental health”

Articles on Electric Mountain power station tour and US visas

Obviously, you don’t need a US visa to visit Dinorwig power station in Snowdonia, just a ticket from the Electric Mountain visitor centre. This buys you the chance to see a stirring film, then take a bus tour around an amazing piece of underground engineering that is capable of filling the gaps in UK power demand when millions of people put the kettle on.

I mentioned tea a lot in this article for the Register, such as the following: Continue reading “Articles on Electric Mountain power station tour and US visas”

What makes tumours tick? Genomics pave the way for tailored treatments

Advances in genetic testing are enabling healthcare professionals to personalise treatments for diseases and conditions including cancer, diabetes and HIV

It’s remarkable how genomics is being used in NHS healthcare, particularly in cancer, where tests now look at the DNA of actual tumours rather than patients. As I have covered previously for ComputerWeekly.com, lung cancer is being targeted through the National Lung Matrix Study. It’s now the case that 15-20% of lung cancer patients can receive targeted treatment based on genomics.

Gary Middleton, professor of medical oncology at the University of Birmingham and chief investigator of the National Lung Matrix Study, put it this way in my new article on this for Guardian Healthcare Professionals Network:

Lung cancer used to be a very simple disease. There were very few treatments and patients did very poorly. It’s really quite complicated now. Keeping on top of the new drugs and the new indications is difficult.

Continue reading “What makes tumours tick? Genomics pave the way for tailored treatments”